The major powers could deploy the technology in conflicts in these nations.
And, just as significantly, this argument de-emphasizes the possibility of collaborating with adversaries on limiting military AI systems, favouring arms race over arms control.
One step at a time Surveying the potential significance and risks of AI in these different domains merits some skepticism about the technology.
I believe that AI should be adopted piecemeal and with a nuanced approach rather than subject to sweeping claims of inevitability.
In developing this careful take, there are two things to keep in mind: -First, companies and entrepreneurs working on artificial intelligence have an obvious interest in the technology being perceived as inevitable and necessary, since they make a living from its adoption.
It’s important to pay attention to who is making claims of inevitability, and why. -Second, it’s worth taking a lesson from recent history.
Over the past 15 years, smartphones and the social media apps that run on them came to be seen as a fact of life a technology as transformative as it is inevitable.
Then data started emerging about the mental health harms they cause teens, especially young girls.
School districts across the United States started to ban phones to protect the attention spans and mental health of their students.
And some people have reverted to using flip phones as a quality of life change to avoid smartphones.
After a long experiment with the mental health of kids, facilitated by claims of technological determinism, Americans changed course.
What seemed fixed turned out to be alterable.
There is still time to avoid repeating the same mistake with artificial intelligence, which potentially could have larger consequences for society.